The problem is that if we had sent more troops, or kept the Iraqi army intact, the insurgency would not exist in its present form. Our failure to get the basic infrastructure of Iraq up and running, and our limp wristed responses to the early advances of the insurgency combined into making their causes a popular one. We've finally gotten our act together, and are grinding the insurgency down, but in all fairness we stood by and let a number of little fires burn into bonfires. We did a lot of things very, very well, but there were a few that we could have done differently. I hope that the next time America finds herself considering a foreign occupation, people benefit from our example.
As I said before the Pentagon didn't decide that we needed an Iraqi Army until after the Madhi uprising and the First Battle of Fallujah.
Wolfawitz admitted in his interview on the Pentagon Channel in October that up until April 2004 envisioned an Iraqi without a real Army like post war Japan.
Wolfawitz all but said in that interview that the Pentagon didn't take the insurgency seriously until after the Madhi uprising and the first Battle of Fallujah at which time they figured out there was a real problem that couldn't be dealt with by 100,000 US troops alone.
As Powell said, we should have imposed Martial Law immediately. We should have controlled the Syrian border, immediately. We should have dealt with that Sadr runt, immediately.
We could have used Tear Gas or other riot Gas on the Sadr group, but because it is the military it is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. We need to overhaul the GenvCon to allow non-lethal gas or agents. We could then take down city blocks in Fallujah or Tikrit or elsewhere and identify all persons a lot more safely.
Why isn't Powell making the above recommendation, or anyone else for that matter?